Question : For most of my life I’ve hidden that I’m atheist from my family and friends. The thing is: I feel embarrassed to be atheist. Is that normal?

Answer : Yes it is normal. When you live in an area thats heavily populated by theists, it’s understandable that one would feel some social and psychological pressures from that community. This can lead to feelings of inadequacy, loneliness, isolation, and even embarrassment when one is feeling judged or ridiculed.

Which is exactly how they want you to feel.

You see, one of the things about theism is that it creates an attitude of fear and mistrust. It teaches you that those that don’t believe the way you do should be shunned or proselytized . The embarrassment you are feeling is probably due to worrying about how others will perceive you, and consequently, whether or not they will accept you. Religion uses this to their advantage as a way of discouraging people from leaving the flock. It’s a method of control.

To combat this, find ways to build up your self esteem about your atheism. Try finding atheist meeting in your area. Join atheist chat rooms or message boards. A great atheist message board is The Atheist Network Find others who have gone through what you have, and gain comfort from shared experiences. As much as you may feel like it right now, you are not alone. This will help to build up your confidence and allow you to feel less embarrassed about your lack of belief.

Once you’ve built up your confidence, this will allow you to deal with your family and friends in a healthy manner. Try to be kind and understanding towards them and when they aren’t towards you, question them as to why. Show them that you being an atheist doesn’t make you less of a person. Show them that you can be more moral, more honest, and more understanding then they can towards you. Make them aware of your feelings and ask them to be understanding even if they can’t relate to your disbelief. They will find it much harder to judge you when they think that you hold yourself to a higher standard then they do themselves.

Remember, you have nothing to be embarrassed about. If you are a good person, then you are a good person no matter what your beliefs, or lack of beliefs are. Help them to focus on that aspect of yourself and do the same for them.

Welcome to the new site. The old Drupal-based site ground to a halt (like many such sites, apparently) so we’ve gone to WordPress.

Jake’s posted his old videos and I’ll be reposting my Great Big Arguments series (edit: it’s all up now), but the majority of the questions, answers and discussions went down with the old ship and we’re very sorry about that. You’re welcome to restate any of the old questions for us to answer anew. (This is of course your chance to rework or rephrase those questions, if for example you think we got you on a technicality last time.)

We look forward to receiving some questions by voice thanks to Google, and may answer in kind.

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Have a question for an atheist? Ever wonder what atheists think about morality, faith, science, etc.? How do atheists live their lives without a god? How do they know right from wrong? Are they just angry at god? Do they really NOT believe?

Hopefully this site will give you all of the answers you are looking for and more. Asktheatheist.com is a joint project where all atheists are encouraged to answer questions in either text, audio, or video formats. Think you have a better way to explain it ? Share it with everyone! The idea is to have a variety of answers for each question, and thus find a variety of ways to open people up to understanding atheism and atheists.